The topic of Puppy Linux on phones and tablets has come up before... and we had some good input in the thread, but someone had a hissy fit and got the whole thing deleted. Since this topic will no doubt surface again in the future, I'm taking the time and effort to remake it. I sadly don't remember all of the input that everyone had in the thread, so I hope those that participated in the last thread will join in on this one.
DON'T WORRY, I will not get moody and request that the thread be deleted. I believe in community input, and although I am the OP, I do not feel it gives me the right to control everyone else's thoughts and input in this thread.

So lets get down to business.

Myth: 'The market is changing', and we must join in that change or we will be left out in the cold.

Fact: Yes the market is changing, but not as much as some imply.
The market is changing in the ways of how people use technology. The fact is that phones/tables are what many call 'throw away devices'. People don't upgrade them, they just go out and buy a newer one. Where as someone can install a new OS on a desktop/laptop and give it new life, people don't commonly do this on phones. My younger sister has friends that buy new phones about every 3 to 4 months. Even though their current phone is good and works fine, they want the newest and latest device. And so they toss their old one and get a new one. They don't even consider loading things onto their current phone to make it work like the newer ones.
So in a market where people just go buy a new device for a new function or feature, how many will install another OS? Yes the geeks among us will, but the overwhelming majority will not. Should we

Myth: "Desktops/Laptops are going away in favor of Mobile devices"

Fact: No they aren't.
Yes it is true that Phones/Tablets are outselling computers. I had many links in the old thread that pointed to actual industry stats of this, but I cant seem to find them now, Hopefully someone will find them and share them. If I recall correctly though, the sales of phones/tables was something like 5 times greater than sales of computers. So yes, commercially phones and tablets are selling more than computers. But that does not mean that computers are coming to an end. After all, people once said that Laptops would kill the desktop... and as we all know that hasn't happened.
The fact is that in 2012, over 100 million (If I recall correctly), computers were sold worldwide. Computers are not 'going away' A link I did found can be found here: http://www.statisticbrain.com/computer-sales-statistics/
Of interest are the sales of computers for 2011 and 2010, both of which are above 90 Million.

Myth: "Tablets are more useful, and easier to use."

Fact: No they aren't.
I don't know why people think this. Sure touch interface is nice... but right now the industry hasn't figured out how to use it properly. In another 5 to 10 years it'll have worked it out, but right now its pretty bad. Nothing more than glorified point and click, with the added flair of zooming through multi-touch. Aside from the zoom feature, touch interface really doesn't offer much more today in early 2013, than it did in late 2008, when I purchased a touch screen overlay for my Lenovo laptop. As for the 'usability' claims of tablets... this also is an exaggerated claim. I cant say it any better than John Swansburg said in a post of his. Which I'll quote and link here.

John Swansburg wrote:

I admit that I bought my iPad for the wrong reasons. I got one because it seemed like everyone I knew had gotten one for Christmas and, well, I felt left out. I didn't think about how it would fit in with the gadgets I already owned (laptop, Kindle, iPhone), and I didn't borrow a friend's and take it on a test drive. Now I just feel annoyed, having spent $600 on a device that hasn't done anything to improve my life. A salad spinner would have been a better investment, and I don't even eat that much salad.

I don't think the iPad is useless. There's no question that it makes browsing the Web while sitting on the couch easier. Though I have a relatively svelte laptop, it's kind of a pain to tote around the apartment. But am I the kind of person who pays $600 to save the effort of detaching some USB cables from time to time? I don't want to be that kind of person.

He goes on to include comments from his co-workers on the tablet idea:

John Swansburg wrote:

Me: I hate my iPad. What am I doing wrong?

Jessica Grose: Maybe the problem is that you are expecting it to be more than a toy. It is not "useful" in any meaningful sense, unless you are traveling with it. The games are super fun though.

Taige Jensen: I think if you bought it thinking it was more capable than a laptop, you'll probably be disappointed. I have a terrible HP laptop that you can only use when plugged in, so I'm obviously biased.

John Swansburg: I think it's amazing that Apple has convinced so many people to pay $600 for what seem like such marginal improvements in their lifestyles—$600 to be able to check my e-mail in bed in a slightly more comfortable fashion than I can on my laptop seems sort of crazy when I stop and think about it.

I recommend everyone go read the article, as it addresses the issue without the commercial frenzy. And while I'm at it... I'll address another issue with tablets... they simply aren't designed well. What do I mean? Well simple, when I try to use one my hands get in the way. In our recorded history we always have had different input and output areas. Think about it, when you sit at a laptop or desktop you have the input from the screen and then the output to the keyboard. I'm talking about this from the viewpoint of the USER not the device. Well on a tablet they are the same... so my brains input is constantly being interrupted by the fact that my attempts to output are obscuring my input source. Having a single field double as both input and output is just contrary to how we observe and deal with reality around us. Hand/Eye coordination exists for this very reason in our cognitive process. With a tablet you are trying to force both into the same space. While that works for some tasks, it doesn't work well with others. Think about, when you are driving, think about when you are playing a video came, etc. This is why devices such as the Microsoft Surface has an optional keyboard. But doing this makes the tablet nothing more than a less functional laptop. So whats the purpose? Why not get something like the Lenovo Twist, thats a convertible laptop? For anyone thinking that's a new design... go back and look at the older Fujitsu laptops, they've been designing these for over a decade now.

This is not to say that tablets are good for some things, they are. They are good at watching videos, reading books, reading papers, surfing the web, listening to music, etc. But tablets are not sufficiently better at any of these tasks to make them our primary device for these actions. Sure they make browsing the web while watching TV easier and more comfortable... but how often do we actually do that, and when we are... how engaged in both activities are we?

So why the hysteria? Because it's basically a fancy new toy for adults. And a toy that costs a lot of money and has a lot of businesses wanting to capitalize on that frenzy and get our money.

Myth: "If Puppy doesn't jump on the mobile wave, we will die"

Fact: This is nothing more than FUD. (fear, uncertainty and doubt)
As stated before, 100 million computers were sold in 2012. This means that in 5 to 10 years, those 100 million computers could use a smaller lightweight OS to give them new life. As modern OS-es continue to grow, the demands for a smaller lightweight OS will still exist. The demands for Desktop/Laptop OS-es will continue into the foreseeable future.
Btw... anyone remember the PDA craze in the 90s? It was the must have item for all techies, it was going to revolutionize everything. It didn't. The functionality was eventually folded into Phones like in the Palm Treo line. Apple ultimately made the smart-phone 'desirable' for the every day person, but it existed long before the first iphone came along.

Myth: "Puppy is perfect for the mobile space."

Fact: Puppy was and is designed for older hardware.
Yes there are releases which are focused on newer hardware, as shown by the 64 bit development. However that's where our focus has always been. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't consider the mobile space, but its not where our focus has always been. Finding developers has always been more difficult for us compared to other distros. To find and entice developers with skill in the mobile market would be supremely difficult for us. After all, anyone of serious skill in this area is being gobbled up by Ubuntu and Mozilla right now, as they make their attempts at a mobile OS.

Myth: "Puppy is what people want on their mobile device."

Fact: I hate fan-boy statements. Yes thats a fact, lol. Even when they are about something I prefer and like, statements like that often have the opposite effect in the public eye. Look at all the hatred that Apple gets because of their religious fan-boy customer base.
In the original thread, someone made an extremely poignant comment. I wish I could remember, who; so if it was you, please stand up and take credit. The comment was something to the effect of, "Puppy was designed to resurrect older hardware, why on earth would you want that on your phone?"
Taking that a bit further, one of my current smart-phones has a 1ghz ARM processor. That's more powerful than some of the older laptops I have in my house that run puppy. So why would I want puppy on that?
Puppy's performance on ARM is lacking as it is, and to be honest... we don't really have a true puppy version for Puppy. We have what, in my mind, is nothing more than a remix of Rasberrian. On my RPi (Rasberry Pi), I run Arch because it outperforms Rasberrian or Puppy by leaps and bounds. Could Puppy preform better, intrinsically I believe it could; but I don't have the skill to make it do so. And I'd prefer not to detract from my 64 bit work to attempt to make it work better. With a limited developer bases we are going to have to pick and choose where we focus our efforts.

Myth: "Puppy could gain a mobile foothold."

Fact: Puppy does not have the industry position to be able to make the business contacts to make puppy on a mobile device viable.
Lets stop for a second and look at Puppies 'foothold' in the *nix market. If someone was going to write about the history of Linux and its current state, we are at best a footnote. We dont have any substantial market foothold in the Linux OS market. Puppy's public image isnt really that good. I've talked to a lot of IT people, and Puppy is seen by many as sort of the red-headed stepchild of the Linux community. I'm going to address all of this in another thread.. so I'll link to it once I write it. No reason to derail this thread by getting into an indepth conversation about it here.

Well... I think thats a good start to the conversation, hopefully everyone who commented before will jump on board, and we'll get some new people to join in the discussion.

Edit: Fixed some grammatical and spelling errors I noticed._________________Last edited by Q5sys on Fri 22 Feb 2013, 09:59; edited 1 time in total

Everything I've been thinking, having read these threads now for a couple months.

I agree with you on every single point Q5sys.

In fact, there's a member on a forum I visit where almost every new thread he posts is about a new technology that people should take more advantage of and how it's the next big thing that everything in the future will be based on...

I roll my eyes and move on. I've tried reasoning with him, and it doesn't work very well.

No, I will not identify the member or the forum, but if he sees this and wants to ID himself, he's welcome to do so._________________

All this brings us back to the initial question: can you replace a computer with a tablet? The answer is simply, no. At least not yet. You may only use a computer for the simplest tasks, in which case you’d assume it would be possible to do so. But the fact is, at some point, you’ll run into something that will require you to use a PC.

I cannot express how frustrating things became at times. After I was done with work, everything was great; I could browse the web, do my social networking, chat with my friends, watch movies, etc. But those working mornings were about the most frustrating thing I have ever gone through. It would usually take me twice the time to finish an article, and I would still need my co-workers to finish up those things the tablet would not let me do. I literally pulled my hair at times.

A tablet will not have the flexibility and complexity a computer has anytime soon. It is meant to be a supporting “side” device (or a luxury), to perform simpler tasks in a more intuitive manner. They are also great for portability, entertainment and games. But if your work revolves around a computer, you need a desktop or laptop PC.

If all someone does is check their email and Facebook or watch videos a tablet/smartphone may suffice....... Imagine opening a couple of spreadsheets on a 7" tablet? Encoding videos on a underpowered smartphone?

ARM arch is here and important, all the way from raspi to the latest quad core chips.

I see a different niche for puppy. ARM servers are here too and with the right tweaks puppy could be very useful on those

loading puppy on a kindle fire or google nexus 7 would be crazy. Why? They work fine how they are with droid loaded.These things will likely die after 2 years of solid use. Think phones.. only the older ones survive and have decent battery life. Think about cynogen mods too. The biggest complaints with these android hacks are often battery life is dismal.

Where would we get the human resources for
a) building the original, bearing in mind the diversity of available hardware. No less than 3 kernels would need maintenance, and drivers keeping up to date.
b) package building/compatibility
c) bugfixing

SMART PHONENokia Lumia 610:
REVIEW
1. My daughter and her Australian boyfriend [he works in computers and has a higher spec version] bought this as an Xmas gift for my wife [and me].
I haven't yet attempted to learn how to use it; perhaps my wife will teach me once she has learned how to use it.

2. My wife really likes this.
So small and convenient, she can sit browsing the web whilst watching TV.
It auto-connects wirelessly to our router upstairs at the Puppy PC.

3. We also use the GPS feature to tell us how to get to our destination whilst I'm driving our car.
That's REALLY NICE!
I like the way it automatically recalculates a new route whenever you deviate from it's suggested route.
You can hardly go astray.

4. I'd like to have Puppy as the OS, don't know if my wife would, she normally uses Windows, but our PC has Slacko-5.3.3.1 as our number-1 Puppy OS.
No Windows on the PC, but may install XP to use with the Lumia 610.

SMART PHONENokia Lumia 610:
REVIEW
1. My daughter and her Australian boyfriend [he works in computers and has a higher spec version] bought this as an Xmas gift for my wife [and me].
I haven't yet attempted to learn how to use it; perhaps my wife will teach me once she has learned how to use it.

2. My wife really likes this.
So small and convenient, she can sit browsing the web whilst watching TV.
It auto-connects wirelessly to our router upstairs at the Puppy PC.

3. We also use the GPS feature to tell us how to get to our destination whilst I'm driving our car.
That's REALLY NICE!
I like the way it automatically recalculates a new route whenever you deviate from it's suggested route.
You can hardly go astray.

4. I'd like to have Puppy as the OS, don't know if my wife would, she normally uses Windows, but our PC has Slacko-5.3.3.1 as our number-1 Puppy OS.
No Windows on the PC, but may install XP to use with the Lumia 610.

Dookus wrote:

If a Puppy port is released for Tablets, I'm in ... hopefully with swip text and a properly mapped keyboard, I wait in anticipation, perhaps this could be my entry into writing for a distro?

Since you both have expressed an interest in this, I have a few questions for you.
1) What exactly is it about puppy that you would want on a tablet?
2) What functionality that puppy provides are you looking for?
3) What would puppy offer you that Android would not. (just using android as an example)_________________

Joined: 15 Mar 2011Posts: 47Location: now living in wonderful Stanmore, inner western suburb of Sydney Australia, where the sun shines nic

Posted: Sat 16 Feb 2013, 06:41 Post subject:

Quote:

(1) What exactly is it about puppy that you would want on a tablet?

The "light weightlessness" I set-up Puppy on a Acer Aspire I was given with a poorly Celeron CPU (Puppy has revived other older laptops, including one which had problems including the inability to boot from a CD, yet the diskette was able to load CD drivers and start the install) the Acer did not support XP well let alone any Disto except Puppy, Puppy works well and is amazingly stable and quick, puppy's ability to run programs from other distro's (IE I use "Password Safe" and was able to set-up "Password Gorilla" and use my existing data base)

Quote:

2) What functionality that puppy provides are you looking for?

Puppy always has good support, there is rarely a need to move away from the distro because there is no way to do what one needs to (In my case so far) If swip text was supported especially, the standard includes and other software available for download for Puppy (IE in my case Slacko) have been all I need.

Quote:

3) What would puppy offer you that Android would not. (just using android as an example)

My Toshiba AT100's hardware is all I need, sadly Android is not stable, often Chrome and other programs will disappear, no error message upon restart of the program, just total loss of data, no history in Chrome for Android (Honeycomb), the ability to root the unit and run Puppy on internal memory or boot from SD with no regrets that Android is no longer present AT all! I enjoy swip text very much, could live without it, but it is good, not sure if there is the ability to add it, but it would be something! Android is not open, you are locked in by certain restrictions, like Mack OS there are times when you cannot change things to how I would like, Puppy has more options due to the opensource nature of Linux, though sometimes a lot of research and extra work is needed to get what I may need to run, in the end it can be done, I've often given up as "Too Hard" on Android when trying to get certain functionality, perhaps I should get my laptop out and use it to refresh what I enjoy about Puppy, suffice to say Puppy does the job for my portable devices.

The things that would be missed if not available on Puppy.

On my tablet and phone, Google Maps APP, perhaps running that within a browser will be ok, not sure if the GPS function could be supported.

GPS on Android Phone would be good if ported for phone, my android phone needs to be cycled often before a text message can be sent after using the GPS, which I do every day, and sometimes this problem occurs when the GPs is not being used, (Samsung Galaxy Fit) no fix has been found.

There are so many functions a phone and tablet offer, can Puppy be written to cover enough to make is worthwhile?

I'd just rather not be using windows, but Puppy instead.
At the moment the Lumia 610 is using a version of Windows [don't know which], and hence I'll be forced to install a version of Windows [XP?] to my PC so as to be able to connect the smartphone and download stuff for use on the phone.
Whoever uses the phone [me?] will be roped into using Windows.

Things the Lumia 610 can do:
1. Create a Windows Live ID...
To get apps or access other services [SkyDrive, Hotmail.

2. TouchScreen.

3. Transfer contacts using Bluetooth.

4. Manage contacts.

5. Make phone calls.

6. Email and social networking.

7. Take pictures and share.

8. Browse the web.

9. Download apps, games and more.

10. Find your way for free with GPS.

1. Use Zune to listen to music and podcasts and watch videos whilst on the move.

The "light weightlessness" I set-up Puppy on a Acer Aspire I was given with a poorly Celeron CPU (Puppy has revived other older laptops, including one which had problems including the inability to boot from a CD, yet the diskette was able to load CD drivers and start the install) the Acer did not support XP well let alone any Disto except Puppy, Puppy works well and is amazingly stable and quick, puppy's ability to run programs from other distro's (IE I use "Password Safe" and was able to set-up "Password Gorilla" and use my existing data base)

Well here is one problem... If we ported Puppy to a tablet... it wouldnt just be able to take use of regular linux packages. So our entire library of programs isnt going to matter. We'd have to go and rebuild all of those packages for ARM, and at the same time edit them to be able to take advantage of touch interface. gcmartin created a thread which I started to explain this all... instead of copy/pasting it all here, I'll direct you to go read the responses I put there. Its pretty much the same thing I'd say here. Touch screen swipe behavior in Puppy (2013)
This package issue is why you dont see tons of linux apps running on android. If it were simple to do so, we'd have TONS more programs running on android. But sadly, its not just that simple.

Dookus wrote:

Quote:

2) What functionality that puppy provides are you looking for?

Puppy always has good support, there is rarely a need to move away from the distro because there is no way to do what one needs to (In my case so far) If swip text was supported especially, the standard includes and other software available for download for Puppy (IE in my case Slacko) have been all I need.

The software issue is address above.

Dookus wrote:

Quote:

3) What would puppy offer you that Android would not. (just using android as an example)

My Toshiba AT100's hardware is all I need, sadly Android is not stable, often Chrome and other programs will disappear, no error message upon restart of the program, just total loss of data, no history in Chrome for Android (Honeycomb), the ability to root the unit and run Puppy on internal memory or boot from SD with no regrets that Android is no longer present AT all! I enjoy swip text very much, could live without it, but it is good, not sure if there is the ability to add it, but it would be something! Android is not open, you are locked in by certain restrictions, like Mack OS there are times when you cannot change things to how I would like, Puppy has more options due to the opensource nature of Linux, though sometimes a lot of research and extra work is needed to get what I may need to run, in the end it can be done, I've often given up as "Too Hard" on Android when trying to get certain functionality, perhaps I should get my laptop out and use it to refresh what I enjoy about Puppy, suffice to say Puppy does the job for my portable devices.

Yea Android has some issues with being clunky, and I think thats just a result of using Java to run everything. Eventually so many things want to operate at the same time. Where as with most linux os, programs dont collide much in needing the same resources, and if they do one just patiently wants until the other is done. On Android it seems that the entire UI just stops and waits.

Dookus wrote:

The things that would be missed if not available on Puppy.

On my tablet and phone, Google Maps APP, perhaps running that within a browser will be ok, not sure if the GPS function could be supported.

GPS on Android Phone would be good if ported for phone, my android phone needs to be cycled often before a text message can be sent after using the GPS, which I do every day, and sometimes this problem occurs when the GPs is not being used, (Samsung Galaxy Fit) no fix has been found.

There are so many functions a phone and tablet offer, can Puppy be written to cover enough to make is worthwhile?

I know for myself, I dont have the necessary skill to write GPS apps for puppy. Im sure there are linux based GPS apps, but I dont know of them.

So basically it comes down to this, if you, or anyone else, thinks that we can just take puppy drop it on a tablet and you'd be able to run the puppy you know and love with the programs you know and love... thats not going to happen.

It's a flawed concept based on incorrect assumptions. There is no way you'd know that unless you've dug into the issue and looked at it. If x86 tablets ever take over ARM tablets... then we might be able to make something happen, but I don't see the Intel Atom chips wining out in that market.

If Puppy on a Tablet is something you need or want... the best you can do right now is to get something like the Lenovo Yoga laptop and run puppy on it, but dont expect any apps to work well with a Touch UI._________________

That doesnt really tell me much. lol
Can you give me an idea of what exactly puppy does for you that windows doesnt? What makes you like puppy more than windows? And please dont reply with 'because I can run the programs I want'... lol. Give me specifics.

If puppy on a phone/tablet is ever going to happen, we need to know the specifics of what exactly people want, so we can start to determine if its feasible.

You're list of things you can do on your windows phone is a good start, but puppy (right now) can pretty much do four (6, 7, 8, 9) out of 11. (we might have GPS... but I think the solution is from a few years back so I dont know how it works now)_________________

Can you give me an idea of what exactly puppy does for you that windows doesn't? What makes you like puppy more than windows?

1. I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you here, because I'm unable to be as specific as you'd like.

a. To me, it's more about the Puppy [I like] versus the Microsoft [don't like] Big Brother culture.
b. For [12?] years I used Windows quite happily.
The OS and the programs successfully did what I wanted done.
I finally switched away from Windows when I caught a Trojan.
Went looking for a secure alternative, and found Puppy.
I'm concerned that the Smart Phone may become infected.
Or that, as with Windows, we'll need to install and run anti-virus programs in the background like in Windows.
Windows bloat on a smartphone!

c. And Puppy works well for me too.
[Except "SaveMyModem" isn't as good as "Mailwasher"]
So unless Puppy Linux OS's suffer some catastrophic collapse, I'll avoid going with any other OS.
Hence I'm hoping Puppy will meet all of my needs, which are generally very simple and limited, except in the case of a Smart Phone.

d. By-the-way...
One of the cool things my wife is doing with the smartphone is to photograph [and save/record] barcodes, and those fancy patterns that give URL's to webpages/sites....very handy that.

Joined: 15 Mar 2011Posts: 47Location: now living in wonderful Stanmore, inner western suburb of Sydney Australia, where the sun shines nic

Posted: Sat 16 Feb 2013, 18:08 Post subject:

Quote:

Well here is one problem... If we ported Puppy to a tablet... it wouldnt just be able to take use of regular linux packages. So our entire library of programs isnt going to matter. We'd have to go and rebuild all of those packages for ARM

My Tablet has a AMD chip, this is where the whole thing may be difficult.

Well here is one problem... If we ported Puppy to a tablet... it wouldnt just be able to take use of regular linux packages. So our entire library of programs isnt going to matter. We'd have to go and rebuild all of those packages for ARM

My Tablet has a AMD chip, this is where the whole thing may be difficult.

what exact chip? well it might just be eaiser to ask what exact tablet model you have. Then I can look at its entire hardware spec._________________

Okay, in the earlier (deleted) thread I posted questions about "why do you want puppy on your tablet - what are the puppy features you would like to see on that" - and Q5sys has conveniently re-asked that questions for me (thanks for that), so I won't be asking that again.

As I've said before, I've never received satisfactory answers to those questions. But perhaps I was looking at the wrong side (I was looking at "technical features"). The gist of from previous posts seems to be what makes Puppy worthwhile to be on tablet is two things:
a) speed
b) freedom

I would argue that "speed" is arguable (one can use cyanogen mod or other tweaked firmware to get a better responsiveness); while freedom - while in itself is worthwhile goal, isn't really specific to Puppy. Android is open source, and using BSD license (GPL for the kernel) it is as "free" as it could be. Unlike iOS and WinRT, on Android one can load apps as one pleases, no restriction here. So the freedom is already there._________________Fatdog64, Slacko and Puppeee user. Puppy user since 2.13.
Contributed Fatdog64 packages thread

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